Well things aren’t TOO bad, and the Feed

The Feed was rather light this morning and not too gory or depressing. I finally got the picture of Mrs. the Poet sitting on the remains of a branch I cut off the tree transferred from my phone to my hard drive and from there to the media library of the blog and on to yesterday’s and today’s posts.

Since most of you won’t see the picture I put on yesterday’s post this morning, here it is again:

As you can see, that’s a pretty big hunk of tree sitting there under Mrs. the Poet. One of the reasons I didn’t want to cut it into firewood is the chain on the chainsaw is dulled from all the cutting I have been doing lately, live oak being a particularly tough wood to cut, and the dull cutting tool is causing problems with dragging and kicking back when I’m cutting. This in turn causes me to get tired a lot faster than just holding and guiding the saw as it normally cuts, leaving me breathing hard and with burning forearms after every big cut. So this is either going to be a bench, or I have to get the chain sharpened before I continue.

Up first is the most complete report I have gotten about the driver who drove around with the cyclist he just hit sticking through his windshield. CYCLIST: DRIVER DIDN’T SEE ME STUCK IN WINDSHIELD That’s right, the victim in this wreck and hit-and-run claims the driver acted like he wasn’t even there until he, the cyclist, spoke up about the wreck. We are talking a seriously blind driver on this one. I’m thinking that a lifetime ban on driving after he gets out of jail should be the first thing on the agenda. Confiscation and destruction of any motor vehicles at his disposal should rank right up there as well. I think perhaps hanging, drawing, and quartering is a bit over-the-top seeing as the victim will probably only have minor psychological damage as the most lasting damages from this experience.

From Jolly Olde the not-so-jolly reminder that a motor vehicle does not have to make full contact with a cyclist to kill. Southampton crash cyclist ‘fatally injured by wing mirror’ For those of us who live in the DFW area this wreck brings to mind the cyclist who was the original reason for the Ride of Silence. Anyway hit-from-behind protocols to avoid becoming a statistic from one of these wrecks, and get the infrastructure right to prevent one.

From Oz, drivers and cyclists need to be on guard against cyclists getting hit. Police urge Wyndham drivers and cyclists to take more care after a jump in the number of cyclists hit by cars OK two interesting statements here: “in 70 per cent of the collisions in 2013 the driver of the car was at fault for failing to give way or moving onto the cyclist” and “In the other 30 per cent the rider was riding in the wrong direction on the road or disobeyed the traffic signal.” So the majority of the cases were cyclists riding with the flow of traffic and obeying traffic controls, so cyclists need to be careful of drivers, not they need to have greater enforcement against bad driving… and the place where you need to be the most vigilant is…”75 per cent of the crashes occurred at intersections at low-risk times, during daylight hours in clear conditions”

Moving to Enn Zed a cyclist fights back in the only legal way he can after getting hit. Injured cyclist to film dangerous drivers If you can’t shoot them with a gun, use a camera instead.

If you can’t blame them with the truth make stuff up? A new police commissioner, some dodgy statistics – and an open letter from me The captions to the pictures is strong at odds to the tone of the letter.

Last link is about a revival of what used to be commonplace in this country. Birth of an American Cargo Bike: an excerpt from the upcoming documentary This is not the company that is doing my new bike, but an older company that many of you are already familiar with.

And those were all the bicycle links that gave me fits today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

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This will probably be late, and the Feed

Well, the tree is cleaned up except for one really big (and HEAVY!) branch that the recipient has to decide if they want it in one piece as a bench or lots of pieces as firewood. As a bench we are talking about 5-600 pounds of mass and about 8 feet of seating area. I took a picture of Mrs. the Poet sitting on the branch that is having a hard time making it from my inbox to my hard drive so that I can send it to my blog media library to use in a post, if I’m successful you will eventually be able to see the picture below. The reason I took a stop at this point is the chain will have to be sharpened before I can cut this hunk of oak, because all of that other cutting through hunks of oak has dulled the teeth.

Up first was a hard decision today. I finally went with the cyclist getting killed by a bus in NYC. Pedestrian, cyclist struck and killed in Manhattan crashes and Cyclist Killed By MTA Bus In Harlem also Man Killed by MTA Bus in Harlem Is First Cyclist Death This Year: Report The cyclist hit by the front of the bus which tells me that the cyclist was past or nearly past the bus before it started to pull out and ran the cyclist over from behind, or nearly from behind. This wreck falls so far outside the protocols that it isn’t even ironic. As I read the narrative, the bus was so long that the cyclist passed the rear of the bus while it was still in the double-amber warning flash mode, and the driver decided to pull out after the cyclist passed the rear of the bus but before he cleared the front of the bus. This resulted in a cyclist to the left of the bus as it was pulling out from the curb and in front of the driver’s side front wheels. With the bus in the picture the cyclist would have had to be slightly in front of the driver when the first impact happened, leaving the cyclist zero chance at reacting to the now moving bus. The only person who could have avoided this wreck was driving the bus that killed the cyclist.

Down in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike (I have been reading rumors that FL might be finally losing this “distinction”) a kid is hit riding salmon. Young bicyclist seriously hurt in crash The narrative says the cyclist was off the road and then entered the road against traffic for some reason directly in front of an oncoming car. And I have a bridge I need to unload quickly. Assuming the narrative is accurate that means there was something that forced the cyclist into the road just when the weapon vehicle passed. Find that thing and eliminate it to prevent and avoid. IOW infrastructure is the answer. It almost always is in this country.

Just down the road a bit from that wreck is a wreck in AL. One cyclist killed in Fort Morgan Road accident Hit-from-behind so protocols to avoid or to mitigate damages, and infrastructure to prevent. And how does someone “not stop” when they hit two cyclists? That’s still hit-and-run in my book.

A wreck in WI brings back bad memories of a similar wreck in Ft Worth a few years back, but with better results. Suspected drunken driver jailed in Manitowoc hit-and-run that injured man on pedal tricycle That someone could drive around with a bleeding person stuck through their windshield is just so horrific, it just is beyond belief. I mean I know it happened, as I wrote earlier it happened just a few miles west of here, but the utter depravity required to do it is just beyond my comprehension. Anyway hit from behind protocols to avid and getting the infrastructure right might have kept this degenerate from hitting the man riding the tricycle.

An AZ wreck with no information other than “the cyclist did it”. Cyclist injured in Central Phoenix crash “Failed to yield to traffic” could mean any number of things, including getting hit from behind because passing traffic did not move over enough to pass safely. Since there was no location or positions of vehicles given I can’t say anything about how to avoid this wreck, but infrastructure likely would have prevented it.

In CA yet another cyclist is killed by not staying away from a moving train. Light Rail Train Fatally Strikes 14-Year-Old Girl In San Jose
I have made numerous statements about not getting hit by trains, but it keeps on happening anyway. Maybe it’s similar to what is happening in Japan, where throwing yourself in front of a fast train is one of the most popular methods of committing suicide. That’s about the only thing I see keeping the frequency up, because not getting hit is so easy to do.

Another low-information wreck, this time in Oz. Cyclist struck by car in Nambucca Heads taken to hospital “(S)truck by a passing vehicle” sounds like a bad buzz job to me, hit-from-behind at any rate, so protocols to avoid or mitigate damages, and get the infrastructure right to prevent.

Two links with nothing much to say about a cyclist hit in Enn Zed. Cyclist dies after collision with car and Cyclist killed in Kerikeri The narrative points to a hit-from-behind, but nothing in a definitive way. Protocols to avoid and good infrastructure to prevent.

A bit of good news on the infrastructure front from America’s closest thing to Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Behold the Most Bike-Friendly Apartment Complex in North America What’s interesting about this is they provide 2 parking spots per apartment and still have about an additional 1/3 of the total capacity left over for visitors in a space that would not support one car per apartment.

Last link, on MLK Jr. Day BikingInLA has an appropriate statement from us in the bike blog business. The greatest right of all — the right of everyone to grow up, and grow old

And those were all the links that gave me fits about bicycles that I hadn’t already published.

Billed @€0.02, Opus